Messages - bustaheims

That's a fair point; at a certain place in the build, you do need to make a push to try to get over the hump though.

Kapanen isn't going to stay cheap (breakaway goals) and I'd argue that his team contributions next year probably aren't going to outweigh adding a 1RD even if only for a year. I get that this is exactly what most people want to say about Nylander, but for me (and Dubas it seems) Nylander = elite and Kapanen = pretty good but mostly replaceable (hello Trevor Moore, Ilya Mikheyev).

I'm all for moving Kapanen - I think his decision making/instincts/hockey IQ/whatever you want to call it will keep him from being much more than what he already is, which is a good but not great 2nd line winger. He's not a player you absolutely need to hold on to, but, he's a valuable trade chip. So, I'm not on board with moving him for a short-term piece, like Spurgeon would be right now. If he's moved, it has to be for someone with more than one year left on his contract.

Paul Fenton is shipping out ready to play parts. Minnesota is looking for right-shot scoring options with youth and speed.

Kapanen+ for Spurgeon?

If they can clear the cap space to make it work, and get Spurgeon on a reasonably priced, reasonable term extension, I'm in. If not, then I'd save Kapanen to use in a deal for someone who has more years as a Leaf ahead of him.

Obviously there's differences between a centre vs. a winger and being a goal scorer vs. a playmaker (*cough* *cough*), but it's interesting to compare this deal with the one his teammate Josh Bailey got last season.

Bailey had a career season where he scored 76 points and got 6 years with a $5mil AAV.Nelson had a career season where he scored 53 points and got 6 years with a $6mil AAV.

One paid for what the player should be expect to produce, based on multiple seasons. The other paid based on a career season that will almost certainly not be improved upon, and is quite likely not to be repeated multiple times.

Does seem a little on the high side for a ~20 goal, ~45 point C with questionable defence. Most centers in that cap range a much stronger offensive producers (though, they're mostly on contracts signed a few seasons ago). It is however right in line with the contract Lou gave Zajac.

Ah yes, that pesky limit. The Leafs are at 37 before filling out the roster, so 43 before addressing any Marlies or prospect signings. There's probably room for one if we want a pick and another team is desperate to not deal with insurance or paying out an injury.

If Horton's contract is still on the Leafs next season, we are most assuredly using LTIR. Is there any downside to just loading up on LTIR contracts to pad the our artificial cap ceiling to essentially cover Marleau's deal (and maybe pick up draft picks)? Clarke MacArthur, Marian Gaborik, David Clarkson, for example. Hyman and Dermott will be on the LTIR to start the season as well.

We have little to no performance bonuses this coming season, and Marleau's contract is off the books 2020, so we shouldn't care about roll over.

Well, one obvious downside is the 50 contract limit, which LTIR players still count towards. Secondly, it doesn't really artificially pad the ceiling - the functional amount of cap space the Leafs would be able to use would remain the same, they'd just be paying out more real dollars to guys who aren't on the roster.

Not great rationale, no, but, at the same time, you don't really want to keep someone around who doesn't want to be there - even if they haven't specifically said so. The Sabres also clearly felt they needed a change of leadership, changes to the roster, etc.

At the end of the day, I think the rationale for trading him was okay - not great, but okay. The execution, however, was obviously terrible. They were in such a rush to get things done so they wouldn't have to pay his signing bonus this summer that they turned the whole situation into their own Thornton-to-the-Sharks misadventure.

There's still the fundamental problem of offer sheets though. Either the offer is too high, in which case the team offering it is making a bad decision, or the offer is a fair or even good price in which case the Leafs are probably better off matching it and trading the player themselves.

There's a really good reason we don't see many offer sheets despite teams often being in tricky spots financially. GMs know it's a bad business to be in.

The issue there is they won't be able to trade them for 12 months after matching the offer sheet. They'd need to be proactive about it.

I get that. I think it was pretty understated and without any major twists or turns or anything particularly exciting happening. What I'm sure was intended as a big moment(the melting of the Iron Throne) kind of came off as silly and pointless and the big twist of Jon killing Danerys was basically assumed.

I liked it in a 7 or 7.5 out of 10 kind of way. I think it upheld some expectations in smart ways, subverted others in interesting ones.

Yeah, I think that sums things up nicely. They definitely misread what they thought would be powerful moments, but those moments were still fitting, like the last shot of Jon riding off into the north mirroring the first shot of the series was a miss, but was still somewhat fitting.

In lieu of the hard cap? It's a lovely idea that would make way more sense but the owners seem pretty committed to not seeing alternatives.

Or even with a hard cap. For example, having a soft cap at $75M, and a luxury tax on everything up to a hard cap of $100M. That would help alleviate some of the worries of a “super team” (as unrealistic and unreasonable a fear as it in a sport like hockey where teams require more depth), while allowing richer teams some opportunity to flex their financial muscle.

I dunno. I kind of found it unsatisfying. Not bad, just unsatisfying. Even though all the characters seemed to end up with logical, reasonable endings, it felt like it was missing something - I just can’t put my finger on what.

Well if you ever get a chance to snag the President of a team who won 1 playoff round in 7 years and only did so by sacrificing a large part of the teams future you just gotta do it I guess.

I just looked at his track record with St. Louis too. He was President there from 2006-2012. Then with Columbus from 2012-2019. That's 13 seasons. His teams have missed the playoffs in 7 of those, and have won a combined total of 2 playoff rounds.

I'm not sure how much power he actually had in St Louis. The team was terrible under him, and for whatever reason, he didn't fire their GM until near the end of his tenure there. Was that his choice, or did ownership get in his way? He certainly made the same move pretty quickly after taking over in Columbus, and, while it obviously hasn't turned them into a great team, under his watch, they did go from a team that only finished better than 11th in the conference once to a team that made the playoffs in 4 of his 7 seasons. He's not a hire I'd be excited about, but not one I'd be upset with, either. He's a perfectly ordinary team president.

I also don't put too much of the trade deadline moves on him. That's on the GM, and, a good team president doesn't meddle too much on that side of things.